Over the past few days I've had to deal with quite a few library patrons who have been, or will be, mad at me. My offence? Not allowing their underage children into programs.
When our program staff members come up with ideas for programs, they set the age range of the program themselves. They have an extremely good idea of the attention span and general knowledge required for the program, and their experience gives them a good idea of what an average child of a given age is capable of. The people I work with are talented and experienced, and I know they extend the lower limit of the age range down to an age that likely will require a fair bit of assistance.
Nonetheless, we have been overwhelmed with attempted registrations and requests for special treatment made for younger children over the past few days. I cannot (and would not anyway) go into specific details, but each of the parents involved read the program description, and felt that the age range, for whatever reason, should not apply to their child. I found myself wondering today if these same parents will argue with the government to let their children start driving a year early, or if they would expect a teacher to allow an underage student into a class simply because an older sibling is already there.
Maybe I'm being over-sensitive, but it seems like a real lack of respect for the library and its staff -- almost as if these parents feel we're stupid and randomly pick the age range for our programs. *sigh*
Again though, if this is my biggest complaint of the day, my life is going pretty darned well.
Oh, Amanda and I met with our wedding photographer tonight. She impressed me, and I think we'll be very happy with her!
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